


Quicksand

by AntaresofJuly



Series: Snowy Days [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntaresofJuly/pseuds/AntaresofJuly
Summary: He watched from afar.





	Quicksand

 

_1995, Paris. Christmas Eve._

_It's about to be a big one. They are a group of five world-class operants, each an expert in his or her own field. Len is the organizer. This is his first._

_It is going to begin in precisely 2 hour and 56 minutes. Excitement and nervousness pound his brain. He has gone over every detail of the plan 15 times already. And now, reviewing it for one last time, his thoughts start to drift._

_There is no return now. He has passed that line long time ago. But sometimes he wonders, if there has been another way._

_They never did go to child service._

At first it was because of Lewis's threats, that horrible things would befall them if they ever dared to try. Then by when Len was old enough to know the possible out, the bastard had already made Captain. And he knew enough not to leave visible bruises on their bodies most of the time. It didn't help that by that time he had already stolen and got caught enough times in order to feed himself and his sister. Len knew which side the police would take.

Besides, some of Lewis' threat was true. The chance for Len and Lisa to stay together if they went to foster care was slim. So, they never bothered. For a long time, it was just them against the world.

But it changed somehow when the mysterious "magician" popped up out of thin air. Len was still skeptical, but he didn't know how to explain it.

Lisa started to ask about magic and wizards and all that jazz after that day.

"No, he's not a real wizard, Lise. Magic doesn't exist. Nor for real." He told her firmly, better not to get her hope up for some crazy mojo shit. Nothing was gonna just flick and make their life better. So yeah, magic didn't exist. All that happened that day was some parlor trick, and he was just not smart enough to figure it out.

A trick, though, that was glorious and refreshing, and gone all too quick.

After a while they stopped talking about it. Mr. Bear never came back. Which was fine, because he never made any promise in the first place. He was just a random stranger, fancy himself a good samaritan for one snowy afternoon, irrelevant in their life.

  
Three years after that, Len was in high school, still hiding his bruises just like good old days. Their father had been more drunk more often. The abuse got worse. That was when his peers started to obsess about superheroes. He snorted at their infatuation of the comics some of them seemed to be so fond of. The whole deal was ridiculous.

There was no superhero in this real world.

Yet sometimes in the middle of the night, very rarely, when their father stumbled back home from a bar, drunken, angry, seeking an easy target to let it out, and Len told Lisa to hide under the bed, in the time he waited for the blows to start, dreadful and hating it, he allowed himself a moment to imagine, to fantasize, that a willy wizard with a sad smile would suddenly pop up, and whisker them far, far away.

It was stupid, of course, but it kept him from despairing a bit longer. Even if he had always knew, in the end, no hero would appear to save the day.

It had became more and more suffocating, his high school, this pretense of a normal life. What was the point anyway, he had no idea what constituted as normal, he had realized that some time ago, and he never cared about it much.

Then came the first time he raised his arms to defend himself, not just blocking the hit, but actually hitting back.

He was tired of Lewis' mental control. "I provide for you," the bastard would scream. "I give you everything you have! You ungrateful little piece of shit! I should have drown you the second you I saw your face. A bad seed! That's what you are! How dare you ever try to undermine me!"

It used to drill in his head, but at that moment, he had an epiphany, and with it, as he broke Lewis' jaw, a triumphant determination.

"So what," he thought, "I don't need to be a good seed. I don't need to be a good anything. What if I will be bad. I will win and take whatever I want. I will have a fantastic life. I will live by my own rule."

Nobody dictates Leonard Snart.

He was freed.

Not long after, Len took on a "task" in another city, leaving Lisa behind. His talents were finally noted by the big names. He went with the envies of his "colleagues." But the truth is, he had to run away, when he knew if he stayed, he would eventually lost himself (his mind, his confidence, the core of his very being).

He knew what would devastate him: The moment he'd realize that he couldn't even protect himself, let alone Lisa.

So he ran, far far away, but not before dropping her the incriminating evidence that he had gathered over the years but was too ragged to know what to do with.

  
He hoped she did, hoped she was stronger than him.

 

_The time has come. He shakes the melancholy aside to pull a most impressive heist in Paris tonight. There will be time for everything._

_He gives the signal._

_Everything goes so fast, yet is perfect to seconds. The merriness and excitement pound his heart. They pocket the mark. Then he sees it, the golden star, sitting on black velvet beneath a glass dome, a diamond, perfectly cut, blinking in the center. It is ice embroidered in gold, just like Lisa's skating dress when she won that stupid prize on that snowy day._

_Lise was right. Paris is indeed an magical city._

He put the little box, wrapped in golden paper, tied with silver strings, on the tray and took off his belt and shoes.

"Ah," The customs officer smiled at him knowingly, "girlfriend?"

"Guess again," He smiled back lazily, his eyes twinkled, "It's for my little sister."

The officer looked impressed, "You must be a very good brother."

He kept his lips curved and said nothing.

  
He would leave it in her locker. He would linger, hide, and watch, as she run frenetically out of school gates, but he would never moved a hair's width.

There was not much that terrified Len Snart anymore, but meeting Lisa was.

It became a habit. Year after year. A present now and again. He watched from afar.

What chance of a life would she have if her criminal brother got too close anyway.

He stood in the crowd as Lewis Snart was finally towed away, kicking and screaming, more than three years after condemning evidence first turned up in an investigative reporter's mailbox. He was proud. She was stronger and smarter then he had ever been.

He turned away to leave.

And came face to face with Lisa, golden star blinking on her neck, glistening eyes and trembling lips. "Welcome home, dear brother." She said, striking out to clutch his hand.

Len felt his throat close, but he managed. "I'm back."

He was pulled into a strangling embrace. Len gingerly pet her bushy head, which buried itself in the fabric on his left shoulder. Then, with the faux-sweetness of a feral smile, she said, "And Lenny? If you ever leave me behind ever again, I'm gonna **skin you alive**."

Feeling a pang in his chest as he remembered the sweet little girl he left behind, still his Lise, but different now, Len lifted a crooked smirk. "Sure, sis."

After all, he was finally home.

 

\-----

 

_Barry stands far away from the siblings. Like he always did since the incident._

_So many years, he watched from afar. He watched as Lenard Snart fought and fell, and rose again._

_He watched as Lisa Snart learned the art of manipulation and underhandedness._

_He saw the strength and good and love in the both of them. And how they were convinced that they weren't any "good," if they fought back, if they lied and stole to protect themselves, if they were victims. Yet, they still decided to fight back, in each their own way. That was the strength in Snart. He build his confidence elsewhere, unconventionally, despite being a "bad seed."_

_"Good" was too oppressive a concept, long forsaken by him, taken away by a hard life, by years of torments and mental conditioning. So when he sensed Barry's expectation for him to "break good", he went defensive, for that meant leaving behind the confidence he had built over the years, and get thrown out of his elements of cold calculations into the deepest insecurity of the heart. He must never be good._

_That was why when Len burgled into his world again and again, cold humor in his eyes and unapologetic, Barry could not push him away. He knew this man was strong, yet at the same time, he sensed something very broken inside of him. Snart was like quicksand. Barry was already in too deep._

_"What about Ferris Air?"Joe grunted. "Snart is a liar, Barry, and he's dangerous. It's in his nature."_

_"He actually did what he said." He retorts without thinking. "He actually escort them there. We just didn't think to specify what came after. It's a loophole."_

_Joe looks at him like he's insane._

_Maybe he is, but so is the world. So what? All lawyers aren't in prison._

 

_fin_


End file.
